[fedora-india] Free media India (WAS : Hi, trouble in fedora media program)

[Ankur Sinha]

On Wed, 2010-07-28 at 20:47 +0100, Frank Murphy wrote:
> On 28/07/10 20:07, A. Mani wrote:
> 
> > Whatever the thread was about, in my opinion the only problem with
> > program is that many of the people requesting media in India may not
> > be really serious about it. When they are asked to collect the media,
> > they may just not care to respond.
> >
> 

hey Frank,

> Though not from India, I wouldn't put it so cut and dry.
> If it's through the Freemedia program,
> there are a number of guidlines,
> Full Name (First and Surname suffice)
> Full Address Incl pin
> 
> If there is no reply to asking them to collect, maybe?
> 
> 1: Have they internet,
> 	or do they use Internet Cafe with infrequent access.
>
> 2: Have they long job\college hours.
> 
> 3: Illness of themselves or family
> 
> Please give the benefit to the requestor.
> 
> If someone doesn't colect a Media, post it.
> It is part of the signup procedure for Freemedia.
> Be willing to mail at least 2 media per month.
> 

We don't close the tickets ourselves. We let the tickets remain open for
the entire duration until a new month starts. Once the new month starts,
the ones without replies etc. are closed as per the work flow process. I
think a 1 month wait is enough?

When I accept, I ask them to reply stating if they can collect the media
in person and if not, I will go ahead and mail it to them. But I do
expect a reply. I also mention my cell phone number so folks can just
call/SMS and inform me. (A few of them do)

IDEA -> Should we ask them for their cell phone numbers too so we can
SMS them too along with the email? That would take less effort from them
to respond? Everyone has a cell phone nowadays and messaging is really
cheap, if not free. We can use one of the internet SMS sites to contact
them for free?

I do try to give benefit to the requester, but requesters in India have
the tendency to request media because its free and doesn't need them to
work. I've had folks from my college file tickets and not reply when
asked them to come up to my floor and collect media :( Maybe these
experiences have ended up making me a little sceptic about people's
interest levels.  

( I mail 4-5 media per month apart from the ones that folks come and
collect, but not all of these are via the free media program, quite a
few are ones that had contact me personally. )

> 
> *If you do have to close a ticket for invalid address,
> take the next ticket.
> 
> There are some ouside India who mail to India,
> when they have filled their local tickets.
> 
> Now, why can not an Indian mail to India?
> We have seen the prices earlier in the thread.

We do. But as also mentioned, we don't have enough contributors to
supply the entire request list. My limitation is monetary. (I can't
spend too much from my allowance on it. )

> 
> I send media by regular\standard mail to India,
> and it gets through, not all mail goes missing.
> 

Can we discuss the SMS idea a little bit? Looks like a good one to me. 

Thanks,
Regards,
Ankur